NORTH-EASTERN RHODESIA 91 



the mind of the baby Bantu is not nourished 

 on fairy tales and httle conundrums Hke enhght- 

 ened John Jones, aged four. But these views 

 are wholly wrong. The tales of the African 

 child grow up with him just as the bean-stalks 

 and the giant-killers linger in our memories long 

 after we have given up the toys of the nursery 

 for the sterner playthings of life. Our riddles 

 remain with us throughout the enigma of exist- 

 ence; and so do the sayings of the native, his 

 conundrums and proverbs give him ready-made 

 philosophy and wit when the happy days of 

 childhood have been exchanged for the no less 

 happy days of man's estate. 



" Nyumbu yopanda chitseko?" (The house 

 without a door?) queries one, and another answers, 

 " Dzera " (an egg). 



" Kantu cosa mangeka ? " (A thing you cannot 

 tie up ?), says the old chief, and logic falls from 

 the lips of one of his wives when she replies, 

 '' M'Pepo " (the wind). 



" Kantu cosa nyambula ? " he remarks (A thing 

 you cannot lift ?). Reason beneath a score of 

 ugly wrinkles answers, " Chintunsi-tunsi " (a 

 shadow). 



" The white man makes a big fire and sits a 

 long way from it, but the black man lights a 

 little one and sits close to it," says the Central 

 African native. The truth of this remark must 

 be manifest to all who have wandered through 

 the interior and have lounged back in a com- 

 fortable deck chair at a respectful distance from 

 a great, blazing pile of logs, whilst, squatting close 

 around a number of small fires, the " tenga 

 tengas" (porters) — the sinews of the expedition 

 — while away the evening with jest and gesture, 

 their feet almost in the flames. And when the 



